Nagaland BJP lodges complaint against news portal

Dimapur, Feb 12 (IANS) Nagaland’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Sunday lodged a police compliant against a news portal that claimed top party leader Ram Madhav was caught red-handed by separatist National Socialist Council of Nagaland (Issac-Muivah) with two Naga women in a hotel room here.

“It is a false report to tarnish the image of our party leader (Ram Madhav) and the party has lodged a compliant with Dimapur police this evening,” state BJP President Visasolie Lhoungu told IANS.

Quoting sources, the media portal “Newsjoint” claimed that “last week, Madhav was caught red-handed and saffron faced, working well beyond his brief, with two Naga women in a hotel room” here.

Madhav is BJP General Secretary in-charge North East.

Lhoungu said that the portal seemed to be a fake news agency or channel “devoid of any truth and written with malicious intent.”

“Such spreading of false news is tantamount to not only character assassination but also poses grave risk of sparking off communal tension,” Lhoungu said.

“Madhav was held in captivity by the NSCN for hours. He then made frantic SOS calls to Assam colleague Himanata Biswa Sarma, BJP’s trouble shooter in the North East,” the report alleged, adding that Madhav was released only after Sarma reached out to the NSCN.

The news portal also claimed that the NSCN also has hours of video footage in possession, which it has threatened to release in public, “if the BJP-RSS do not give in to its demand to call off the assembly elections in Nagaland, due on February 27.